Hi there. If you have a look at http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.configure.php you'll notice, that there are _many_ options, which are not documented. The rest is IMHO not documented very detailled.
Lets see a good example to show you what I (we) think is "detailled": --with-mysql has a little text, a link to the MySQL Configuration Directives in php.ini and a link to mysql.com. I think, there should be a link to http://www.mysql.com/doc/I/n/Installing.html, too. My idea of the installation/configuration part of the manual is the following: If someone wants to install PHP with severeal extensions, he should find _everything_ he needs to find, download and install the extension, i.e. a link to download, a link to the manual and some explanation, what this extension does and what he'll need to run it in PHP. The best example of an extension beeing not documented at all and, giving no one a chance to get _quick_ information about it is the cracklib. When I wrote the chapter about those configure options for my first book, I wouldn't have a chance to find anything about it, if I hadn't someone on IRC who told me, that --with-crack means installing PHP with the cracklib. Well, try searching Google for "crack" or "--with-crack". The first one... 3.5 million hits... The second one brings up drugpages and some PHP Manual pages. Okay, the first entry is the link to right site, but it wasn't there, when I wrote that book. If there would be a manual entry with info like "Information about the Cracklib is on http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~crypto/";, it would help a lot. The second idea would be to start documenting _all_ configure options in, IMHO the best way, a directory in CVS like /phpdoc/configure/. If most of the stuff is done, we could split install.configure.php in 3 or 4 pages, i.e. pinting the link "Database" not to http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.configure.php#install.configure.databas es but to http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.configure.databases.php These are only my $ 0.02, but I hope everybody understands my ideas and I'll get (hopefully positive ;) feedback. There are some people, I've talked to about this and they mostly agreed with me. Mark
